The present invention relates generally to material handling vehicles and, more specifically, to operation and management of material handling vehicles via wireless communication, including in the context of one or more associated networks.
In some material handling vehicle operations, information about the material handling vehicle can be monitored (e.g., from remote installations). For example, one or more material handling vehicles can be monitored with regard to maintenance cycles, software configuration, operational or other options, vehicle diagnostics, vehicle performance or operations, vehicle status information, and so on. In some cases, the information obtained from such monitoring can be used to help manage the material handling vehicle(s). For example, information relating to maintenance cycles or vehicle diagnostics can be used to help schedule appropriate maintenance, and information relating to software configuration can be used to help schedule software updates, and so on.
In some instances, material handling vehicles may be provided with software or firmware updates on a regular (or other) basis. This may be useful, for example, in order to update the material handling vehicles to perform under the demands of the systems and contexts in which they operate. In conventional systems, updates to material handling vehicles can be implemented via direct human interaction (e.g., via an operator at the relevant vehicle manually facilitating or otherwise guiding an update process) or via a central server configured to push updates over a wireless network to each individual material handling vehicle.
In some instances, material handling vehicles can be operated in contexts in which readily locating one or more of the material handling vehicles can be difficult. For example, material handling vehicles can be operated in environments in which one or more of the vehicles are not always within line of sight of relevant monitors. Similarly, in some contexts, technical issues, missed communications, or other factors can result in difficulty in communicating with and/or locating certain material handling vehicles. In some cases, accordingly, the current location(s) of one or more material handling vehicles may not be readily identifiable by relevant personnel or management systems (i.e., the one or more material handling vehicles may be “missing” vehicles). The existence of missing material handling vehicles can reduce efficiency and effectiveness of a related fleet of material handling vehicles. Further, individual material handling vehicles that are missing or, for example, otherwise out of range of relevant communication systems, can miss updates or other maintenance, or miss or delay sending operational or other data to a relevant management system, for example.